specific diagnoses, but the link between lagging skills and challenging behavior is unequivocal. For example, the association between ADHD and lagging executive skills (e.g., difficulty shifting cognitive set, doing things in a logical sequence, having a sense of time, maintaining focus, controlling one’s impulses) is well-established. Equally well-established is the fact that kids with ADHD are at increased risk for other diagnoses (and much more serious challenging behavior), such as oppositional defiant disorder (ODD: temper outbursts, arguing with adults, and defiance) and conduct disorder (CD: bullying, threatening,intimidating, fighting, physical aggression, stealing, destroying property, lying, truancy). 2
There are also convincing data documenting increased rates of ODD and CD in kids with mood disorders (i.e., those who have difficulty with skills related to the regulating of one’s emotions, including managing one’s emotional response to frustration so as to think rationally [separation of affect]), 3 and in kids who are socially impaired (including skills such as accurately interpreting social cues, seeking attention in appropriate ways, appreciating how one’s behavior is affecting others, empathizing, and appreciating how one is being perceived by others). 4 The research literature has increasingly shown that kids with language processing delays (including skills such as considering a range of solutions to a problem; expressing concerns, needs, or thoughts in words; and understanding what is being said) are at significantly greater risk for ODD and CD as well. 5 And there is a persuasive and growing literature documenting the very challenging behaviors that can accompany autism spectrum disorders and nonverbal learning disability (and the black-and-white, concrete, literal thinking that typifies these disorders). 6
We’ve learned a lot about children’s brains in the last thirty years. We now know how challenging kids come to be challenging. It’s time for our actions to reflect our knowledge.
Question: You mentioned that kids with behavioral challenges aren’t usually challenging every second of every waking hour. Some kids are challenging at home and not at school, others at school and not at home, and others in both places. If it’s true that the kid is lacking skills, then why would he be exhibiting challenging behavior in one place and not another? Isn’t the discrepancy in behavior between home and school proof that he’s choosing to behave one way in one place and another way in the other? Isn’t that a sign that the kid is doing well when he wants to?
Answer: Actually, it’s proof that challenging behavior is specific to certain conditions: those where skills are being required that the child does not yet sufficiently possess or where he continues to confront problems that he hasn’t been able to solve.
Especially in cases where a kid is more challenging at home than school, it’s common for people to explain the disparity as the result of poor parenting. Now you know better. The school environment may have advantages that reduce the likelihood of challenging behavior in some kids. School environments tend to be more structured and predictable than home environments, and this can reduce the likelihood of challenging behavior in some (but by no means all) challenging kids. Often medicines that are helpful for reducing challenging behavior at school have worn off by the time the kid arrives home. And some kids can manage to stay tightly wrapped during the school day and then completely unravel—some would say decompensate—once they’re at home again. Of course, most of us look a lot better when we’re outside the home than when we’re inside it!
Even when the reverse is true—if a kid’s challenges are greater at school than at home—it’s common for the finger to be pointed at parents (“The parents just let him do whatever he wants at home. No wonder he doesn’t act up
There are also convincing data documenting increased rates of ODD and CD in kids with mood disorders (i.e., those who have difficulty with skills related to the regulating of one’s emotions, including managing one’s emotional response to frustration so as to think rationally [separation of affect]), 3 and in kids who are socially impaired (including skills such as accurately interpreting social cues, seeking attention in appropriate ways, appreciating how one’s behavior is affecting others, empathizing, and appreciating how one is being perceived by others). 4 The research literature has increasingly shown that kids with language processing delays (including skills such as considering a range of solutions to a problem; expressing concerns, needs, or thoughts in words; and understanding what is being said) are at significantly greater risk for ODD and CD as well. 5 And there is a persuasive and growing literature documenting the very challenging behaviors that can accompany autism spectrum disorders and nonverbal learning disability (and the black-and-white, concrete, literal thinking that typifies these disorders). 6
We’ve learned a lot about children’s brains in the last thirty years. We now know how challenging kids come to be challenging. It’s time for our actions to reflect our knowledge.
Question: You mentioned that kids with behavioral challenges aren’t usually challenging every second of every waking hour. Some kids are challenging at home and not at school, others at school and not at home, and others in both places. If it’s true that the kid is lacking skills, then why would he be exhibiting challenging behavior in one place and not another? Isn’t the discrepancy in behavior between home and school proof that he’s choosing to behave one way in one place and another way in the other? Isn’t that a sign that the kid is doing well when he wants to?
Answer: Actually, it’s proof that challenging behavior is specific to certain conditions: those where skills are being required that the child does not yet sufficiently possess or where he continues to confront problems that he hasn’t been able to solve.
Especially in cases where a kid is more challenging at home than school, it’s common for people to explain the disparity as the result of poor parenting. Now you know better. The school environment may have advantages that reduce the likelihood of challenging behavior in some kids. School environments tend to be more structured and predictable than home environments, and this can reduce the likelihood of challenging behavior in some (but by no means all) challenging kids. Often medicines that are helpful for reducing challenging behavior at school have worn off by the time the kid arrives home. And some kids can manage to stay tightly wrapped during the school day and then completely unravel—some would say decompensate—once they’re at home again. Of course, most of us look a lot better when we’re outside the home than when we’re inside it!
Even when the reverse is true—if a kid’s challenges are greater at school than at home—it’s common for the finger to be pointed at parents (“The parents just let him do whatever he wants at home. No wonder he doesn’t act up
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